Gavin let the doctor's warnings fall in the grass. In his joy over
Nanny's deliverance he jumped the garden gate, whose hinges were of
yarn, and cleverly caught his hat as it was leaving his head in
protest. He then re-entered the mud house staidly. Pleasant was the
change. Nanny's home was as a clock that had been run out, and is set
going again. Already the old woman was unpacking her box, to increase
the distance between herself and the poorhouse. But Gavin only saw her
in the background, for the Egyptian, singing at her work, had become
the heart of the house. She had flung her shawl over Nanny's
shoulders, and was at the fireplace breaking peats with the leg of a
stool. She turned merrily to the minister to ask him to chop up his
staff for firewood, and he would have answered wittily but could not.
Then, as often, the beauty of the Egyptian surprised him into silence.
I could never get used to her face myself in the after-days. It has
always held me wondering, like my own Glen Quharity on a summer day,
when the sun is lingering and the clouds are on the march, and the
glen is never the same for two minutes, but always so beautiful as to
make me sad. Never will I attempt to picture the Egyptian as she
seemed to Gavin while she bent over Nanny's fire, never will I
describe my glen. Yet a hundred times have I hankered after trying to
picture both.
An older minister, believing that Nanny's anguish was ended, might
have gone on his knees and finished the interrupted prayer, but now
Gavin was only doing this girl's bidding.
"Nanny and I are to have a dish of tea, as soon as we have set things
to rights," she told him. "Do you think we should invite the minister,
Nanny?"
"We couldna dare," Nanny answered quickly. "You'll excuse her, Mr.
Dishart, for the presumption?"
"Presumption!" said the Egyptian, making a face.
"Lassie," Nanny said, fearful to offend her new friend, yet horrified
at this affront to the minister, "I ken you mean weel, but Mr.
Dishart'll think you're putting yoursel' on an equality wi' him." She
added in a whisper, "Dinna be so free; he's the Auld Licht minister."
The gypsy bowed with mock awe, but Gavin let it pass. He had, indeed,
forgotten that he was anybody in particular, and was anxious to stay
to tea.
"But there is no water," he remembered, "and is there any tea?"
"I am going out for them and for some other things," the Egyptian
explained. "But no," she continued, reflectively, "if I go for the
tea, you must go for the water."
"Lassie," cried Nanny, "mind wha you're speaking to. To send a
minister to the well!"
"I will go," said Gavin, recklessly lifting the pitcher. "The well is
in the wood, I think?"
"Gie me the pitcher, Mr. Dishart," said Nanny, in distress. "What a
town there would be if you was seen wi't!"
"Then he must remain here and keep the house till we come back," said
the Egyptian, and thereupon departed, with a friendly wave of her hand
to the minister.
"She's an awfu' lassie," Nanny said, apologetically, "but it'll just
be the way she has been brought up."
[Illustration: "DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD INVITE THE MINISTER, NANNY?"]
"She has been very good to you, Nanny."
"She has; leastwise, she promises to be. Mr. Dishart, she's awa'; what
if she doesna come back?"
Nanny spoke nervously, and Gavin drew a long face.
"I think she will," he said faintly. "I am confident of it," he added
in the same voice.
"And has she the siller?"
"I believe in her," said Gavin, so doggedly that his own words
reassured him. "She has an excellent heart."
"Ay," said Nanny, to whom the minister's faith was more than the
Egyptian's promise, "and that's hardly natural in a gaen-aboot body.
Yet a gypsy she maun be, for naebody would pretend to be ane that
wasna. Tod, she proved she was an Egyptian by dauring to send you to
the well."
This conclusive argument brought her prospective dower so close to
Nanny's eyes that it hid the poorhouse.
"I suppose she'll gie you the money," she said, "and syne you'll gie
me the seven shillings a week?"
"That seems the best plan," Gavin answered.
"And what will you gie it me in?" Nanny asked, with something on her
mind. "I would be terrible obliged if you gae it to me in saxpences."
"Do the smaller coins go farther?" Gavin asked, curiously.
"Na, it's no that. But I've heard tell o' folk giving away half-crowns
by mistake for twa-shilling bits; ay, and there's something dizzying
in ha'en fower-and-twenty pennies in one piece; it has sic terrible
little bulk. Sanders had aince a gold sovereign, and he looked at it
so often that it seemed to grow smaller and smaller in his hand till
he was feared it micht just be a half after all."
Her mind relieved on this matter, the old woman set off for the well.
A minute afterwards Gavin went to the door to look for the gypsy, and,
behold, Nanny was no further than the gate. Have you who read ever
been sick near to death, and then so far recovered that you could once
again stand at your window? If so, you have not forgotten how the
beauty of the world struck you afresh, so that you looked long and
said many times, "How fair a world it is!" like one who had made a
discovery. It was such a look that Nanny gave to the hill and Caddam
while she stood at her garden gate.
Gavin returned to the fire and watched a girl in it in an officer's
cloak playing at hide and seek with soldiers. After a time he
sighed, then looked round sharply to see who had sighed, then,
absent-mindedly, lifted the empty kettle and placed it on the
glowing peats. He was standing glaring at the kettle, his arms folded,
when Nanny returned from the well.
"I've been thinking," she said, "o' something that proves the lassie
to be just an Egyptian. Ay, I noticed she wasna nane awed when I said
you was the Auld Licht minister. Weel, I'se uphaud that came frae her
living ower muckle in the open air. Is there no' a smell o' burning in
the house?"
"I have noticed it," Gavin answered, sniffing, "since you came in. I
was busy until then, putting on the kettle. The smell is becoming
worse."
Nanny had seen the empty kettle on the fire as he began to speak, and
so solved the mystery. Her first thought was to snatch the kettle out
of the blaze, but remembering who had put it there, she dared not. She
sidled toward the hearth instead, and saying craftily, "Ay, here it
is; it's a clout among the peats," softly laid the kettle on the
earthen floor. It was still red with sparks, however, when the gypsy
reappeared.
"Who burned the kettle?" she asked, ignoring Nanny's signs.
"Lassie," Nanny said, "it was me;" but Gavin, flushing, confessed his
guilt.
"Oh, you stupid!" exclaimed the Egyptian, shaking her two ounces of
tea (which then cost six shillings the pound) in his face.